Academies 'expel pupils over league tables'

Teachers have accused academy schools of expelling badly behaved children to inflate their position on school league tables.

They also claimed that the schools - run by churches, charities, universities and entrepreneurs - may be undermining teachers' morale by flouting national agreements on pay and conditions.

The comments came as ministers prepare to make it easier for sponsors to back the schools, in order to increase the number of academies being opened from 50 a year to 55 over the next two years.

The National Union of Teachers has claimed the schools were divisive as they expelled large numbers of problem pupils, overloading nearby comprehensives.

According to the latest figures, academies expel 5.5 pupils in every thousand, compared to 2.4 in other secondaries in England. The Government says this is because academies have "challenging intakes".

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Sue McMahon, an NUT member from Calderdale, West Yorks, said that one academy in Leeds excluded more pupils last year than all the other secondaries in the city put together.

Unlike other state schools, they do not have to surrender the pupils' funding when a child is permanently barred.

"Our range of concerns about academies is huge," she said. "But they remain secretive societies, exempt from the Freedom of Information Act but given the right to exclude children willy-nilly.

"Is it right that academies that permanently exclude still pick up the same level of funding from Government but the local authority has to foot the bill for the excluded to be educated elsewhere?"

The NASUWT teaching union is due to debate a motion about academies flouting national policies employed by other state schools.

Chris Keates, the NASUWT's general secretary, said: "Academies remain exempt from the application of national pay and conditions - a continuing irony given that the current pay and conditions were initiated by Government to raise standards."